Startups

Drones built with small, non-frontier computer-vision models autonomously identified and attacked targets in a recent demo.

Rune's RELIC system uses unused solar electricity to power GPUs, avoiding grid connections and conventional data center construction requirements.

"Bitcoin feels like the CD in the age of Spotify, the DVD in the age of Netflix," wrote Jason Calacanis.

Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch: Vantora, formerly UP.Labs, which builds AI-native startups designed to solve problems for corporate customers, raised $100M+ from Silversmith Capital Partners  —  Four years ago, a startup lab launched that wasn't quite an incubator, accelerator program, or venture firm.

Tamara Djurickovic / Tech.eu: Business intelligence startup Veridion, which develops an AI-powered, real-time map of ~640M businesses worldwide, raised a $20M Series A led by Hoxton Ventures  —  The Series A investment will support the development of Veridion's AI-powered business intelligence platform …

When Josh Fleig, Louisiana's chief innovation officer, learned his state had set aside $20 million a year for five years to invest in startup rural health care companies, his reaction was not surprising: "Wow!"

Samsung joined Euclyd's $231 million funding round as the Dutch startup develops an alternative AI chip architecture for commercial deployment in 2028.

Jordan Novet / CNBC: London-based AI infrastructure startup Nscale files for a US IPO, reports H1 2026 revenue up 1,252% YoY to $140.6M, with a net loss of $1.02B, up from $368.9M  —  Nscale, a cloud provider specializing in infrastructure for artificial intelligence models, has filed to go public …

Doctor-CEO Oliver Kharraz explained why healthcare keeps humbling corporate giants.

Instead of going solo, Factorial is bringing battery companies together to make solid-state batteries a reality.

Reuters: Mistral and other European AI startups accuse US rivals of using safety concerns to entrench their dominance, rejecting Anthropic's calls to pace the frontier  —  Europe's leading AI company Mistral and others have accused US rivals of using safety concerns to entrench their dominance …

FRIDAY, Sept. 18, 2026 — When Josh Fleig, Louisiana’s chief innovation officer, learned his state had set aside $20 million a year, for five years, to invest in startup rural health companies, his reaction was not surprising: “Wow!”In rural...

SpaceX has held informal internal talks about buying customer and operational records from troubled or defunct startups to train its AI models, Bloomberg reported. The buyer would be SpaceXAI, whose training of Grok on European users’ posts has been under statutory inquiry in Ireland since April 2025. SpaceX has held internal discussions about buying customer […] This story continues at The Next Web

Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg: Sources: SpaceX has discussed buying customer and operational information from troubled or defunct startups as a more affordable data source for AI training  —  Elon Musk's SpaceX has held internal discussions about buying customer and operational information from troubled or defunct startups …

The U.S. Navy awarded defense startup Castelion $200 million for the production of its Blackbeard hypersonic missile.

The U.S. Navy awarded defense startup Castelion $200 million for the production of its Blackbeard hypersonic missile.

The U.S. Navy awarded defense startup Castelion $200 million for the production of its Blackbeard hypersonic missile.

Picking the Endpoints 11 this year was harder than it ever has been. Finding the year’s most interesting biotech startups is always a process of long hours of debate and research by ...

A psychedelic-like drug for a Parkinson's symptom, mice with half-human brains, and more biotech news in the Readout newsletter.

Emulate, a UK AI startup founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, is in advanced talks to raise up to $700mn in a seed round, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Both the FT and Bloomberg report that Index Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners will lead the round, with Creandum also participating. The two outlets provided different […] This story continues at The Next Web

The Global Startup Center (GSC) successfully hosted its 'WAVE OF GSC' event on Sept. 16, at TIPS Town in Gangnam, Seoul, aimed at introducing the K-startup ecosystem to foreign entrepreneurs. Supported by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Develop

Financial Times: Sources: Emulate, a month-old UK AI startup founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, is in advanced talks to raise as much as $700M at a $3.7B valuation  —  Researchers leaving Big Tech group's London lab close to raising $700mn for new start-up Emulate

Cade Metz / New York Times: How AI startups like Inherent and Recursive Superintelligence are pursuing tools needed for AI systems to achieve recursive self-improvement  —  Jeff Clune, a computer scientist and co-founder of Recursive Superintelligence, one of the start-ups chasing “recursive self-improvement.”

Arena to lead a new $30 million funding program to help “promising” early-stage climate and renewable energy startups turn their ideas into a commercial reality. The post New $30 million “launchpad” offers grants to help Australian clean energy startups to take off appeared first on Renew Economy.

Bloomberg: Sources: drone delivery startup Zipline is in talks to raise around $1B at a roughly $20B valuation, up from a $7.6B valuation in January  —  Zipline is in talks to raise around $1 billion in a funding round that would value the drone delivery and logistics startup at roughly $20 billion, nearly tripling its previous valuation.

Thatch is a health-benefits platform that lets employers give workers a defined, tax-advantaged healthcare budget.

Building a business today requires a new approach. Here are 7 things entrepreneurs must do differently to succeed now.

Adele Peters / Fast Company: Modular data center startup Rune raised a $40M Series A led by Spark Capital to deploy off-grid compute capacity directly at solar and renewable energy sites  —  A new data center in southwest Texas isn't connected to the grid—but it also didn't require building any new power plants.

For GS, building AI data centers is becoming less about finding more power and more about finding what comes next, gathering seven startups Tuesday to pitch technologies spanning electricity, memory, cooling and computing. GS Ventures held its 2026 Tech Day at GS Tower in Gangnam, Seoul, bringing together six companies in its investment portfolio and one additional startup focused on artificial intelligence (AI) data center technologies. Executives from GS Energy, GS Caltex, GS E&C, GS E&R and GS Global attended, along with representatives of participating startups. The companies presented technologies covering much of the infrastructure needed to keep AI data centers running, from stable power supplies to graphics processing unit (GPU) cloud operations. Synergy introduced a hydrogen fuel cell solution for data centers, drawing on technology developed for ships and maritime transportation, while Exina presented intelligent memory based on Compute Express Link, or CXL, designed to ease

GS Group Chairman Huh Tae-soo plans to significantly expand collaboration with startups to address the technical challenges facing artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The strategy is to combine innovative startup technologies with the group’s existing business capabilities to establish a lead

New startups secure early customer traction, and watch their sales curves climb aggressively, but on book, the business may look like an unmitigated triumph.

OpenAI reportedly acquired AI camera startup Glass Imaging for more than $300 million, adding computational photography expertise to its hardware push. The post OpenAI Reportedly Buys Camera Startup Glass Imaging for More Than $300 Million appeared first on TechRepublic.

OpenAI has bought Glass Imaging, a startup that uses AI to improve smartphone cameras, in a deal that values it at more than $300m. The Wall Street Journal reported the purchase on 14 September, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the WSJ, OpenAI bought the company quietly in recent months. Neither company has […] This story continues at The Next Web

New York City has selected it’s electric, a Brooklyn company that manufactures in Queens, to replace its curbside electric vehicle charging pilot with a permanent network across all five boroughs. The buildout runs for three years and takes the city from 88 curbside charging points to roughly 700. The award follows the transport department’s August announcement of […] This story continues at The Next Web

New York City has chosen Brooklyn-based it’s electric to supply the hardware for its permanent curbside EV charging network, which will bring nearly 700 Level 2 charging points to all five boroughs over the next three years. more…

Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg: New York-based AI marketing startup Profound raised a $180M Series D led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins at a $1.8B valuation, taking its total funding to $335M+  —  The artificial intelligence marketing startup Profound has raised $180 million at a $1.8 billion valuation in its Series D fundraising round …

Kai Nicol-Schwarz / CNBC: Netherlands-based inference chip startup Euclyd raised a €200M+ Series A co-led by Samsung, Somerset Capital, Scaleup Europe Fund, and Innovation Industries  —  Samsung has backed a Dutch AI chipmaker in a $231 million funding round, amid a boom in investment in alternatives to Nvidia's graphic processing units.

The Information: Source: defense tech startup Shield AI is in talks to raise new funds at a valuation of at least $20B; Shield raised $2B at a valuation of $12.7B in March  —  Shield AI, a startup building drones and AI-powered software for the military, is in talks to raise new funds at a valuation of at least $20 billion …

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Deepinder Goyal’s brain-wearable startup Temple has acquired Longevous, pulling the cofounders into full-time roles steering the science. It started, as these things sometimes do, with someone noticing a strange gadget at a dinner party. Deepinder Goyal, the entrepreneur behind Zomato, now running a health-tech startup called Temple, says he first met Dr Robert Mohr and […] The post Zomato founder’s startup buys UK-based Longevous appeared first on Longevity.Technology.

The startup of unit 3 of India’s Kudankulam nuclear plant is set for next spring, with unit 4 commissioning starting next year, Rosatom says Read Full Article at RT.com

European space startups are attracting fresh funding as the region seeks to build its capabilities and narrow a its gap with the U.S.

Marissa Newman / Bloomberg: US-Israeli startup Buildots, which uses AI to speed up construction of mega-projects like data centers and chip factories, raised $130M at a near-$1B valuation  —  Buildots, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to help speed up construction of expensive mega-projects like data centers …

Meta and Panmnesia propose a CXL data center architecture connecting up to 960 accelerators within one coherent computing domain across multiple racks.

Julian Good reveals Chick-fil-A's $10,000 franchise fee and the staggering odds facing 100,000 yearly applicants vying for roughly 200 spots.

Business Insider: LinkedIn profiles show Google appears to have completed its talent deal, reportedly for $1.5B+, with AI coding startup Mechanize  —  Google has some fresh talent in the AI race.  —  The tech giant has completed its talent deal with San Francisco startup Mechanize Inc, public postings show.

Politico: Ex-Biden officials deny Marc Andreessen's claims that they discussed secret plans to ban AI startups at a May 2024 White House meeting, pushing him toward Trump  —  Since the election of Donald Trump, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has told one podcast after another of a May 2024 lunch …

JoyIn, a Chinese robotics startup, has accused OpenAI of copying its ideas and its website. Its chief executive, Guo Renjie, set out the claims in an open letter in Chinese on the company’s WeChat account, dated 10 September. On the same day, JoyIn announced Aether, a model for controlling humanoid robots. “People often say major […] This story continues at The Next Web

Anissa Gardizy / Wall Street Journal: Source: former OpenAI executive Fidji Simo joins the board of directors at AI infrastructure startup Nscale; Simo will continue as a part-time advisor to OpenAI  —  Nscale board member Sheryl Sandberg recruited Simo, a former top OpenAI executive who departed following a medical leave

Ant-backed startup JoyIn's CEO published an article in Chinese that raised questions about similarities between his company's new model and OpenAI publications.

Economic cooperation between South Korea and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which involves 54 African nations, is materializing with a focus on the startup ecosystem. The Korea-Africa Foundation hosted an online orientation for the ‘AfCFTA Startup Partnership Program’ on Sep. 8 an

Ant-backed startup JoyIn's CEO published an article in Chinese that raised questions about similarities between his company's new model and OpenAI publications.

Ian Rogers shares his biggest lesson from building Apple Music.

Parmy Olson / Bloomberg: Only 4% of the startups in YC's 2026 spring batch had a native mobile app as their main product, down from 15% in 2013, as startups focus on AI and agents  —  Artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to build an app.  New releases on Apple Inc.'s App Store surged by about 80% earlier …

AI inference company Baseten has acquired Blaxel, a startup that builds secure execution environments, or sandboxes, for AI agents. Baseten co-founder and chief technology officer Amir Haghighat told Axios Pro about the deal, which the outlet reported first on Thursday. Baseten later announced the acquisition. Axios describes Blaxel as a San Francisco startup. The announcement […] This story continues at The Next Web

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Bloomberg: Sources: Alibaba is set to lead a $300M round in AI model testing startup UniPat AI at a $2.5B valuation; UniPat founder Li Kuan worked at Alibaba's Tongyi Lab  —  Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is slated to lead a $300 million investment in AI training and benchmarking startup UniPat AI …

The Information: Sources: Jeffrey Katzenberg, ex-OpenAI Sora head Bill Peebles, and ex-Dropbox CFO Sujay Jaswa plan to launch a startup to train AI video models for filmmakers  —  Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg is teaming up with the former head of OpenAI's Sora app to launch a new AI startup that would train …

Microsoft is starting to test some new Xbox console features with Insiders. Testers will be able to try out custom Xbox boot animations from the past, more personalization options for badges, a new local search feature, improved Remote Play quality, the ability to download while you play on cloud, and clearer voice chat. Xbox testers will be able to pick between the original Xbox One boot screen, the Xbox One X startup animation, the original Xbox Series X / S boot, and the new "we are Xbox" boot animation. Unfortunately you won't be able to select the original Xbox or Xbox 360 boot animations, it's only Xbox One onwards. You will soon be able to customize the Xbox boot animation. | Image: Microsoft" data-portal-copyright="Image: Microsoft">The new local search feature. | Image: Microsoft" data-portal-copyright="Image: Microsoft">

Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media: AI CRM software startup Lightfield raised a $47M Series A led by a16z; formerly Tome, it had raised $80M across earlier Series A and B rounds  —  CEO Keith Peiris took Lightfield from a painful pivot to 5,000 business customers, 400% net dollar retention, and a Series A led by a16z.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries has signed an agreement to put a startup’s AI chips into Japanese aerial defence platforms. The chip company is the interesting part. EdgeCortix, a fabless semiconductor firm based in Kanagawa, announced the deal last week, a teaming agreement running from 2026 to 2028. Hideaki Nishimoto, who runs Kawasaki’s defence and aerospace division, […] This story continues at The Next Web

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Enterprise AI security startup Cymphony emerges from stealth with $30M, including a $25M Series A co-led by Sequoia and SMBC, at a $100M+ post-money valuation  —  As AI agents gain access to the same sensitive corporate data and systems as human workers while operating at machine speed, enterprises are prone to new security risks.

Kepler Computing claims a new approach to chip design—and a proprietary material—can help end the supply bottlenecks that have sent memory prices surging.

Michael J. de la Merced / New York Times: AI sales and marketing startup Clay raised $115M led by Wellington Management at a $7.1B valuation, up from $3.1B when it raised $100M in August 2025  —  The round was led by Wellington Management, a firm known for investing in start-ups on the path toward potential initial public offerings.

Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg: Legal AI startup Harvey raised $550M co-led by Lightspeed and Diffusion at a $15.6B valuation, up from an $11B valuation when it raised $200M in March  —  Legal tech startup Harvey is now valued at $15.6 billion after raising $550 million in a new funding round aimed at powering efforts to build its own AI models.

Smack Technologies' CEO said its AI modeling tool will help commanders decide not just which targets to strike, but how to sequence strikes over time.

Smack Technologies' CEO said its AI modeling tool will help commanders decide not just which targets to strike, but how to sequence strikes over time.

Smack Technologies' CEO said its AI modeling tool will help commanders decide not just which targets to strike, but how to sequence strikes over time.

Smack Technologies' CEO said its AI modeling tool will help commanders decide not just which targets to strike, but how to sequence strikes over time.

Founded in 2024, Covenant is speeding up lower-cost missile manufacturing for the U.S. military.

Founded in 2024, Covenant is speeding up lower-cost missile manufacturing for the U.S. military.

Cofertility lets women freeze their eggs for free—as long as they give half of them back to the company. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Young people from South Korea and Indonesia gather in Busan to share entrepreneurial ideas for solving the climate crisis. SK Innovation E&S is hosting Climate SOLVE Week in Busan for six days from Sep. 5 to 10, supporting the growth of young entrepreneurs from both countries.This event integrates I

The Information: Sources: China Securities Regulatory Commission is informally tightening IPO approvals for humanoid startups after a volatile debut by industry leader Unitree  —  Chinese regulators are tightening the approval for humanoid startups seeking to go public after a volatile debut …

Is it possible to make it roadworthy? I don't know, but now's the chance to find out.

Samantha Oltman / Bloomberg: AI coding startup Cognition raised $2B at a $48B valuation, up from $26B in May, and says its run-rate revenue grew from $492M in May to ~$900M  —  Artificial intelligence coding startup Cognition AI Inc. has raised $2 billion in a new round of funding that vaulted its valuation to $48 billion.

Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday it has partnered with French artificial intelligence (AI) startup Mistral AI to enhance its semiconductor operations. The partnership was announced during a summit between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on Tuesday (local time), the world's largest memory chipmaker said in a press release. Under the agreement, Samsung will integrate Mistral AI's services and solutions into its semiconductor operations to develop customized AI models for on-premise use. Mistral AI, founded in 2023 by former employees of Google's DeepMind and Meta, has developed large language models, including Mistral Large. As semiconductor production processes become more advanced and complex, Samsung expects Mistral AI's platform to help improve the design and manufacturing of semiconductors. "Increasing complexities involved in AI chip design and manufacturing requires continuous innovation in semiconductor

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg: Runway co-CEO Anastasis Germanidis says the startup's annual recurring revenue hit $200M in September; source: it expects ARR to cross $350M by the end of 2026  —  Runway AI Inc.'s annual recurring revenue hit $200 million in September, underscoring growing demand from companies using …

Sam Altman gave Axios two interviews four days apart. In the first he said the next generation of AI models would be “sobering for everybody”. In the second he said this is the best time in the world to start a company. Both were with the same reporter, Mike Allen. Both happened around the G20 […] This story continues at The Next Web

Bloomberg: Sources: Anthropic has walked away from talks to acquire Decart for ~$6B after performing due diligence on the startup  —  Anthropic PBC has decided against acquiring artificial intelligence startup Decart AI, people familiar with the matter said.

Stephen Council / Business Insider: A look at Anthropic's Labs team, a ~20-person group led by cofounder Ben Mann that acts as an internal startup incubator for developing flagship products  —  Inside Anthropic, an unorthodox group can take a lot of credit for the AI company's meteoric rise.  —  The company's Labs team …

The EU’s forthcoming Quantum Act will not come with a dedicated budget.  “The act is not about budget,” said Thomas Skordas, deputy director-general of the European Commission’s DG CNECT, at a European Parliament event last week, on 3rd of September. “What the act will provide is the stimulus to make sure that we move in […] This story continues at The Next Web

Reuters: LA- and Bengaluru-based hyperspectral orbital imagery startup Pixxel raised a $100M Series C led by Temasek and Seraphim, bringing its total funding to $195M  —  Indian space tech startup Pixxel said on Monday it had raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Singapore state investor Temasek …

Jonathan Randles / Bloomberg: Filing: AI training data startup Micro1 offers to pay $12.5M for Spirit Airlines' data; the offer faces hurdles as Spirit already has a $10M deal with Google  —  An artificial intelligence startup is attempting to wrest away a vast trove of Spirit Aviation Holdings Inc.'s business records from Google LLC.

A real-life flying hoverboard may be closer than you think. A new eVTOL puts riders on their feet, and the company claims you'll be able to steer by instinct.

The AI training-data company micro1 has offered $12.5M for Spirit Aviation’s internal records, topping Google’s agreed $10M and proposing an ombudsman chosen by Spirit’s advisers rather than the buyer. European law would treat the deidentification promise as a question about capability rather than a label, but none of it applies to an American liquidation. An […] This story continues at The Next Web

Bloomberg: Sources: London-based AI infrastructure startup Nscale is in talks to raise as much as $3.5B in financing, including $2B from Nvidia, ahead of a planned IPO  —  Nscale, a cloud computing firm focused on artificial intelligence, is in talks with potential investors to raise as much as $3.5 billion …

Younger alcohol drinkers complain that bubbles make them feel bloated, so a new wave of brands is betting that flat is the future.

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Alexei Oreskovic / Fortune: AI scientist and Google researcher Ray Kurzweil joins BCI startup Subsense, which develops non-surgical BCI tech involving inhaled nanoparticles, as an advisor  —  Ray Kurzweil, the pioneering AI scientist, Google researcher, and “AI visionary,” is joining a Silicon Valley startup developing …

The personal investment firms of titans like Stanley Druckenmiller are backing innovations in gene editing, drug discovery and more.

The personal investment firms of titans like Stanley Druckenmiller are backing innovations in gene editing, drug discovery and more.

The personal investment firms of titans like Stanley Druckenmiller are backing innovations in gene editing, drug discovery and more.

Marissa Newman / Bloomberg: Israeli startup Guardio, which offers a subscription consumer security service to protect digital accounts like emails, raised $40M at a $1.1B valuation  —  Israeli cybersecurity startup Guardio raised funds from investors including Assaf Rappaport, the founder of cloud security firm Wiz …

Anil Dash: Modern venture capital has transformed into an unchecked oligarchy, or “Cancer Capital”, where mega-firms managing $50B+ live off fees and shift risk elsewhere  —  We really, really need to talk about venture capital.  Because it's not “venture capital” anymore.

Marina Temkin / TechCrunch: Sources: Palo Alto Networks paid $500M in cash and stock to acquire agentic IT support startup Console; PitchBook: Console was valued at $157M before the sale  —  Palo Alto Networks paid $500 million in cash and stock to acquire Console, a two-year-old startup that uses AI agents to automate routine …